Duality
by Lucillia
Summary: In one world, the original Hyperactive Knuckle-headed Unpredictable Ninja Uchiha Tobi is a loyal Ninja of Konoha and Naruto's caretaker, Uchiha Madara is the mastermind behind the Akatsuki, both share the same body, and both try to live their lives despite this fact.
1. Madara

He should have known. Shinobi on long-term spying missions - as in the ones that lasted for years or even decades at a time - ran the risk of it happening. He'd seen - and like an idiot - had completely ignored the warning signs. The blackouts had been getting worse lately, and now that he thought about it, it had happened before. Running through his memories chronologically, there was maybe a decade or two, perhaps even three missing between the Valley of the End and the day he'd pulled the Kyuubi from its seal in a failed attempt to destroy Konoha. A decade or more in which "Tobi" had had control of his body. Harmless idiotic Tobi whom nobody would suspect of really being Uchiha Madara.

The first inkling he had that he'd made his Tobi mask a little too well had been when he'd woken up in some trashy apartment covered in glitter with a Konoha headband tied around his neck like a fucking dog collar. He hadn't realized that that was what it was at the time, as the last thing he'd remembered before his blackout had been drinking a little too much, alright, alot too much. When he'd opened his eyes to find that he miraculously didn't have a hangover and that the sun streaming in through the massive window wasn't pure agony, he was half on and half off a rock hard platform bed with a small child snuggled up to his chest. A small blond child with rather familiar looking whisker marks that he'd last recalled seeing on a newborn infant.

He didn't have a fucking clue what he'd done the night before, but somehow he'd ended up with the current Kyuubi Jinchuriki in his arms and another chance to destroy Konoha. All he'd have to do was...

He had shoved the sleeping child who was dressed in a set of panda pyjamas off of him, and lay it out, preparing to gain control of the Kyuubi who would no doubt rant and rave and threaten to eat him and his worthless former clan like it always did when the door to the apartment opened, the current Hokage stepped inside, and turned to look at him.

"Uchiha-san. While I thank you once again for coming out of your retirement to look after Naruto despite your considerable age, I must ask that you curb the boy's prank pulling tendencies, and that you not aid him in their execution." The Hokage said, pointedly looking at the purple glitter that he and the Jinchuriki to a lesser extent were covered in. "Now that the formalities are over, I must say that I'm glad to have you back since things were getting rather boring around here. Replacing Danzo's underwear with lacy panties was pure genius, as was glitterbombing the Uchiha's secret coup planning session."

He'd blinked, wondering if one of his drunken experiments with the Mangekyo had hurled him into an alternate universe. Izuna had sworn that that had happened to him once, and he hadn't believed him considering how smashed his brother had been before he'd vanished the night before. It had seemed so unbelievable at the time, come on, an evil twin who wandered around wearing an open-fronted shirt despite the fact that it was the middle of autumn and a purple assbow, and an orange wearing ninja that said "Dattebayo" with every sentence who wouldn't stop calling him Sasuke and kept trying to drag him to a place called...

"Tobi-jiichan! We're going to have so much fun together today-ttebayo!" the small panda-suited jinchuriki who was now awake yelled as he launched himself at him and completely knocked him off the bed he'd been perched at the edge of.

Tobi?

Oh fuck.


	2. Tobi

Tobi groaned as he awoke. The cot he had apparently been sleeping on wasn't all that comfortable. There was someone with pink eyes and messy gray hair standing over him looking both fearful and concerned. Crap. He was in Kirigakure. Again. And, he'd apparently crashed at the Mizukage Tower again. He honestly didn't know why the Yondaime Mizukage allowed him to sleep on a cot in his office.

"Um Mizukage-sama, you wouldn't happen to know where my stuff is?" he asked as he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.

The Mizukage nervously pointed to a small pile of charred and blackened objects.

He went over to the pile. From the looks of it someone had burned his favorite orange mask which he'd recently started wearing more often after Naruto had accidentally broken the red and white one along with just about everything else he'd remembered having on his person. There was a small pile of slag that he assumed was the metal plate from his hitai-ate as well as the ashes of his clothes and supplies. Next to the pile was a note. He picked it up and read it.

_Tobi,_

_Now that I know you exist, you won't for very much longer._

_Madara_

Had he been a younger man, he probably would have been more disturbed by the death threat from this Madara person. He'd lived a long and full life however - even if bits of it were missing - and was just about ready to see what lay in the Great Beyond.

He had come to Konoha's gates with a case of amnesia long ago. The Nidaime had kindly taken him in, and had inducted him into the ninja forces during the First Shinobi War when he'd discovered his talent and abilities. When the war had ended, he had settled down in the Uchiha district, married a wonderful woman, and raised six children with her. It wasn't all sunshine and roses especially considering his career and the Second War, but he had been reasonably content.

He had retired long ago so he could spend his golden years doting on his grandchildren, rather than wading through blood. It had been after his retirement and his darling Aiko's death that the strangeness had started. He'd always felt slightly strange, and had always had questions about his past, and why the Nidaime always looked at him rather strangely every time he was in his presence. But, instead of a pervasive feeling that something was just the tiniest bit off as usual, he was finding himself in the most unusual places with absolutely no memory as to how he had gotten there, such as when he'd woken up badly injured several miles from Konoha the morning after the Kyuubi attack.

This threat was just another part of the strangeness that was his life after retirement, and he would deal with it when this Madara person finally decided to make his or her presence known. He couldn't afford to be hanging around Kirigakure waiting for this Madara fellow to show up however, especially since he had come out of retirement and currently had responsibilities, namely the care, feeding, and training of one Uzumaki Naruto who held the job his mother had had before him and the Shodai Hokage's wife had had before her, Kyuubi Jinchurriki.

He wondered how he would make it up to the boy for being gone for who knew how long. He'd once gone back to Konoha to learn that he'd been gone for over a year, and that everyone had thought he was dead. Perhaps he'd bring the boy some sort of souvenir.

He left the Mizukage's office, wondering why the man timidly trailed behind him, and made his way to one of those tourist traps that spring up in every shinobi village in order to further fleece any clients that might drop by on the way home. He ended up picking up several small objects a six year-old might appreciate, along with a "Genuine Kirigakure kunai" that looked like it belonged in the trash rather than on sale. When he reached the counter, he reached for the inner pocket where he usually kept his wallet and ID and found that it wasn't there since he was wearing someone else's clothing. He patted himself down in case the person who had dressed him had put them in another pocket, to no avail.

Great. Just great.

"Don't tell me that bastard also burned my wallet!" he groaned.

He felt a light tap on his shoulder and whirled around to face his potential attacker.

"H-here." the Mizukage said as he held out a large amount of cash.

He took the money, paid for the stuff, and got out of Kirigakure as quick as he could. He didn't know what the hell he'd done to frighten the Mizukage that badly, and honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He just hoped that word of his actions here didn't get home before he did.


	3. Tobi and Madara

Fortunately, Naruto was still six when Tobi had finally gotten back to Konoha. Young Hiruzen had not been pleased with his unannounced "Sabbatical" and had tried to remove Naruto from his care. Key word here being tried, as he'd made the mistake of doing this in Naruto's presence. Naruto had appreciated the gifts he'd brought back for him from Kiri, even the kunai that looked like it had been rescued from the garbage.

The boy had apparently taken his lessons on how to trap and cook animals to heart as the local squirrel population which had been approaching nuisance levels had taken a rather sharp dip in the weeks that he'd been gone. When he got to Naruto's apartment, the boy pulled a dead squirrel out of the fridge and popped it into the oven. Apparently, the boy had been experimenting other cooking methods than the campfire method he'd shown him.

Looking around, he could see that the boy was trying and failing to do something constructive with the tiny hides as well. His next lessons for the boy would have to include the proper way to tan an animal hide and some way to turn meat into jerky. Those were two exceedingly useful skills that almost all of the Uchiha had seen as beneath them that he'd picked up over the years.

That evening, as he taught Naruto how to repair his clothes, they plotted the perfect prank to pull on the Hyuuga. Eventually, Naruto grew tired, and began to nod off. Upon spotting this, he had gotten the boy dressed and ready for bed in a set of blue shark pyjamas which made the boy look as if he'd been eaten by a shark that he'd picked up in Kiri. They were a little big on him, but he'd grow into them eventually.

&!&!&!&

Madara blinked as he awoke. He was on a futon on the floor of a very familiar looking apartment. A small blond boy in blue shark pyjamas that were a little short at the wrist and ankle was snuggled against him just like...Why did he have vague memories of raising children?

Damn, he was back here again. Well, it wasn't like him to waste an opportunity, and he'd just been given a rather choice one. He flipped the boy on his back and unzipped the pyjamas until the child's seal was exposed. As he was preparing to find a way to release the Kyuubi from a seal that wasn't weakened by childbirth, the Jinchuriki awoke, and he found himself looking into a pair of trusting eyes that looked up at him in complete adoration, much like the ones Izuna had when they were small children, and he..

And he didn't really need to use a twenty-story tall nine-tailed fox to destroy Konoha. He needed the Kyuubi for his plans in about a decade, and it could stay wrapped in a nice convenient package until then.

He gave the boy several tips for surviving on his own before he left. As he walked along the road in the forest outside Konoha, he stopped as a sudden realization hit him.

Fuck. That little brat had done it again.

When he reached Kirigakure, it was to discover that the "Mizukage" had used his "authority" to push through some sort of public works project in his absence. He'd let it stand this time though. the village needed new sewers.


	4. Tobi Again

Tobi groaned as he awoke. He could tell just by the scent of the air that was once again back in Kiri. What was it with him and trips to Kiri during his blackouts which had become far more frequent lately. As he came fully awake and aware, he realized that he was back on the cot in the Mizukage's office where he'd crashed yet again, and he found the Mizukage worriedly standing over him once more.

Trying to act nonchalant about the situation he'd yet again found himself in, he got up off the cot, pretending to ignore the fact that the Mizukage had scurried away from him like a frightened animal as he rose, and made his way to the window.

"What's that kid doing?" he asked nobody in particular as he watched a small child dig through a dumpster.

"It's just another orphan." the Mizukage said when he looked down at the kid he'd indicated.

"Why isn't it at the orphanage?" he asked.

"What orphanage?" the Mizukage asked in return.

"You don't have an orphanage?" he asked in surprise, as this had to be the only country he'd been to that didn't have one since Rain Country had rebuilt theirs after the Third War.

"Why should we?" the Mizukage asked.

After a discussions on the merits of keeping an orphanage, including the potential for ninja recruits who would have otherwise starved on the street, Tobi departed from the Mizukage's office and started making his way back to Konoha. While he wouldn't have minded sticking around and helping the Mizukage out with the orphanage, he didn't have the time since he had responsibilities that he had to get back to. Namely Naruto.

When he reached Konoha, he informed the Hokage of his most recent blackout and had been subsequently informed that he had been gone for a month. Fortunately, Naruto had not been remanded to the care of another because the boy was showing signs of being capable of surviving on his own.

Naruto, who had celebrated his seventh birthday while he was gone, had naturally been overjoyed to see him upon his return. The boy had prattled endlessly about what he'd done while he was gone, which was quite a bit, having even gone so far as to have pranked the Inuzuka while he was away.

"An, guess what!" Naruto said excitedly as he prepared dinner for the boy who had been surviving on cup ramen and small game.

"What?" he asked as he moved the half completed squirrel hide blanket off of the table in order to set it.

"I got top marks on my first Survival test-ttebayo!" Naruto exclaimed.

"That's great!" he said as he took the pot of soup he'd prepared off the stove and began to ladle it into bowls. "Now go get washed up."

During dinner, he and Naruto had the sort of conversation that he'd come to miss after his children had grown and left the house. This had been one of the reasons he had agreed to come out of retirement and raise the boy despite the fact that he was obviously having problems. There were times that he forgot that the boy wasn't his blood, and times that he didn't care. After dinner, he took the boy outside to practice his shuriken throwing, teaching him a trick that had been passed down through the Uchiha clan for generations.

After their shuriken practice, he tucked Naruto into bed and hoped that he would have a little more time with the boy before his next blackout.


	5. Madara Again

When Madara came to, he was standing in the middle of a forest holding a bucket of paint and a paintbrush, and surrounded by a number of oddly colored deer. Nearby, the Kyuubi Jinchuriki was giggling as the deer whose legs he was painting chewed on his hair. He had an idea as to who the deer that his alter ego had been painting belonged, as he had a vague memory of the Senju conquering a clan of deer herders at one point, a clan of deer herders who had been dragged to Konoha during the founding.

Sighing at the immaturity of what Tobi had just done, he told the Kyuubi's vessel to pack it in before making his way back to the brat's apartment because it was just too late in the evening to bother leaving, and he was tired despite the fact that he'd technically only just woken up.

The instant he figured out a way to completely eradicate Tobi, he would do so without even a moment's hesitation.

Fortunately, the Kyuubi's vessel, who was covered in paint, was capable of cleaning itself. As Izuna could attest, he wasn't the parental sort, and he wasn't in the mood to give a small child a bath. The boy had been capable of putting himself to bed as well, which was just as well.

When the boy was asleep, he settled himself down on the reasonably comfortable couch for a light snooze. While he had the capability to destroy Konoha at his fingertips at the moment, the truth was he was just too tired, and couldn't be bothered. Besides, he wanted to savor the destruction of Konoha. He was even considering saving it for last, watching as the village's citizens lost all hope, and despair filled their eyes as the destruction of all they knew and held dear inevitably approached.

That day would be glorious.

The next day, as he ate the breakfast the Uzumaki boy had prepared, he savored the fact that the child unknowingly had the cause of his future demise sitting at his table and eating his food. He may be somewhat fond of the boy who reminded him a bit of Izuna, but that wouldn't stop him in the end. The Kyuubi was necessary for his plans a few years down the line.

If the boy's parents could see him now, they would be spinning in their graves.

After breakfast, he bade the boy farewell. He had a village to run after all, and he couldn't do that if he were hanging around here in Konoha painting deer and doing God knew what else.

The journey to Kirigakure was a swift one as usual. When he finally reached the Mizukage's palace/administration complex, it had been to find the man anxiously awaiting him in his office, holding some sort of file which he'd promptly offered to him. Apparently, while he'd been gone, the Mizukage had built an orphanage, a homeless shelter, and some sort of youth center. The file that the man had handed him contained the figures of the subsequent marked increase in enrollment at the Kirigakure Ninja Academy after the three facilities had been built.

Seeing as the establishments didn't interfere with his current plans, he decided to let them stand.


	6. Tobi Once More

Tobi felt like screaming when he woke up to find himself back on the cot in the Mizukage's office. The last thing he remembered doing had been trying to reassure Naruto that he was alright as they pranked the Nara, because he had felt like he was about to faint or something. Apparently, he'd had yet another one of his blackouts, and had been mysteriously drawn to the Mizukage once again, even though he couldn't see anything in particular about the young man that would cause him to be so drawn to him aside from his position.

The aforementioned Mizukage gave him a nervous smile as he sat up and debated whether or not he should go through with his morning stretches despite the fact that he'd be a bit stiff later if he didn't. He returned the smile, though his was more tinged with embarrassment and frustration rather than fear, and turned to look at the end of the bed only to find himself looking at the pile of ash that had been his belongings which was apparently going to be the new routine when he visited.

Next to the pile of ash however was a spare outfit that looked to be his size, a mask that closely resembled the one that had been burned, a wallet full of money, and a hitai-ate. The only thing he could see any sort of problem with was the hitai-ate which bore the symbol of Kirigakure rather than Konoha.

"Um," he said as he set the Hitai-ate aside. "I know that it seems like I practically live here, but I'm not quite ready to make that final step Mizukage-sama."

There was a look in the Mizukage's eyes that was both relieved and disappointed.

"Sorry I can't stay for long, but I have some responsibilities back home." he said as he snapped the mask in place. "Oh, and you might want to try using shadow clones to get through the paperwork a bit faster, young Minato found that to be an acceptable solution during his tenure as Hokage."

With that, he departed, leaving the poor, frightened, Mizukage to his massive mountain of paperwork which had increased since the last time he had been here. He made it back to Konoha in near record time, as he hadn't had to scrounge for cash in order to pay for a berth on the merchant vessel that was headed for Fire Country which had been anchored in port when he'd arrived at Water Country's largest coastal city. He enjoyed the ride, knowing that it could be worse. He'd been forced to work to earn his passage back to Konoha a couple times, and neither time had been fun, as the ship's crew had taken every opportunity to foist their responsibilities off on the ninja.

Very few people were kind to ninja when they were out of cash.

When he reached Konoha, it was to find that he'd been gone a bit longer than usual. Naruto had visibly grown, and had a healthy tan from spending virtually all of the Spring and Summer months out in the forest. The boy whose hair had grown long without him there to cut it looked slightly feral, especially since he had tied feathers and other odds and ends such as small animal bones into the wild golden mane which reached just a tiny bit past his small shoulders. The Hokage, who had been forced to resort to assigning Hunter-nin to the task of fetching Naruto in time for the new term had not been very happy to say the least.

When they reached Naruto's apartment which had been gathering dust while he had been away during Summer Break, he found that Naruto had finished his squirrel hide blanket and had started on another one that looked like it was being made out of rat of all things.

"The Hokage started blathering something about the squirrels becoming endangered or something, and told me to start hunting something else." Naruto said when he'd asked about the rat fur blanket.

"Want some stew?" Naruto asked from by the stove where he had started preparing the ingredients he'd gathered before the Hunter-nin had caught him as he examined the boy's handiwork.

He quickly declined the boy's generous offer. He'd had enough rat to last him a lifetime during the First War. The shortages back then were horrendous, so it had been rat in the field, and guess what when he got home. While the younger generations considered rat to be vermin, there were still some older retired shinobi who considered them to be dinner when they were a bit short on groceries.

He could recall a rather amusing incident involving one of his cousins and Little Obito, who had offered to help her around the house. The poor kid had been quite horrified when he'd been invited to stay for dinner. Unfortunately for him, he had been unable to find an excuse for why he couldn't have dinner with his elderly cousin as his parents who had been unknowing of the fact that their elder cousin had followed an old family recipe for rat stew had shot down his final attempt. Throughout the meal, Little Obito had tried to eat as little as it was possible to do without insulting his host.

After dinner, during which he had helped himself to some cup ramen over Naruto's protests, he had settled back into his and Naruto's old routine of training and prank planning.

It was good to be home.


	7. The One In Charge

Madara scowled when he caught sight of the bare trees below. It had been Summer when he'd gone to sleep, and now it was almost Winter. Now that he was completely aware of the problem he was suffering through, it became a constant irritant while he was lucid. He'd had the Mizukage kidnap a Yamanaka for him, but the woman had failed to cure him despite the numerous ways he'd tried to motivate her.

Turning away from the window, he found himself looking at the Uzumaki child who should be about eight by now. The boy was studying him suspiciously, instinctively knowing that something was off, but not knowing what it was. The child, while still rather small, had grown a great deal since he'd last seen him several months before. He looked healthy and well-fed, and more like a proper shinobi child should, rather than those pampered brats that Konoha and the other villages to a lesser degree had a habit of producing. The odds and ends that were tied in his wild spiky blond hair were an interesting touch, but a rather Uzumaki one as well.

He hadn't seen an Uzumaki dressed for battle in ages. Come to think of it, aside from Naruto, the boy's mother, and that Pein brat, he hadn't seen an Uzumaki in ages period. Some of the wilder Uzumaki who were "more in touch with nature" used to tie bits and bobs that were important to them into their hair before they fought. It sounded funny, but the effect was rather fearsome, especially since the standard hair color for an Uzumaki was blood crimson.

Smirking at the boy who looked like he belonged to an almost forgotten age, he walked past him and out the door. He had to get back to Kirigakure and soon. Knowing Tobi and the fact that the Mizukage seemed to listen to him as if he were him since they shared the same face, the village had probably undergone even more changes, and with his luck they would be ones he couldn't afford to have be made considering a certain balance was necessary for his plans.

One of the reasons that Kirigakure had tended to produce such excellent Missing-nin was because it was a complete shithole and nobody in their right mind would want to live in it. Sure, proper sewers were necessary in order to prevent plague, and orphanages and the like were necessary in order to get brats off the street and out of everyone's hair, but do too much and people would notice, and start looking more closely at the most out of the way of the five major villages in order to see what was going on, and thanks to the improvements his source of loyal to him Akatsuki might dry up, which he really didn't need.

After leaving Konoha through the front gate, he made his way to Kiri and walked into the Mizukage's office like he owned the place, which he did. Seated at his desk, and in a comfy chair in the corner, and in a newly installed window seat was Yagura who was _being efficient_.

This wouldn't do. He needed the guy to basically operate on autopilot so he could better control him. This wasn't autopilot. The man was clearly thinking for himself when he wasn't supposed to be, which was dangerous for several reasons.

Scowling, he pulled out a pair of kunai and disposed of the two shadow clones.

The look of fear in Yagura's eyes when his shadow clones dispersed was pleasing to see. He was in control, and they both knew it.


End file.
